


waking up at dawn (by your side)

by apollothyme



Category: Football RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Blow Jobs in a Car, Crack, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-21
Updated: 2014-08-03
Packaged: 2018-02-09 21:12:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1998000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apollothyme/pseuds/apollothyme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Marco sends in his application to prove a point.</p><p>He doesn’t expect them to call back, much less actually invite him to the Big Brother house. Nevertheless, he has to at least try, otherwise he’ll look like an idiot and a coward. This way, at least, he only looks like an idiot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, this is a Big Brother!AU. No, I can't offer any explanations because there are none. Just roll with it.
> 
> Big thanks to [lishsterical](http://lishsterical.tumblr.com/) for beta'ing this on such short notice.

Marco sends in his application to prove a point.

He doesn’t expect them to call back, much less actually invite him to the house. Nevertheless he has to at least _try_ , otherwise he’ll look like an idiot and a coward. This way, at least, he only looks like an idiot.

His friends tell him he’s being a dumb-ass. Loudly. And repeatedly. Right against his ear.

Marco tries to push them away to no avail.

“Marco. _Marco_. Come on, you’re not really gonna do it, are you? What if you get called in?” Mats asks him. He has his ear pressed against Marco’s neck and his speech comes out either glued together or miles apart. Marco pats him on the head gently. At least he’s not shouting like everyone else had been before they lost interest in him and turned back to the television.

After Marco, Mats is the least drunk of all of them, which doesn’t say much. A drinking game based on Fast and Furious that had you drinking every time someone’s car did something impossible was a terrible, absolutely horrid idea.  Or mind-blowingly brilliant. Marco has to check back on that one come sunrise, the results dependent on the state of his hangover and the amount of embarrassing pictures of him on Facebook. Anything less than three is alright, but over that and they’ve got a ‘let’s never talk about this again, shall we?’ situation.

“Then I’ll go,” Marco replies, as casually as one would say ‘I feel like eating a cheeseburger with extra onions today’.

“You’ll go?” Mats pulls back to look Marco in the eye. His hands grip Marco’s shoulders as if he’s afraid Marco is going to reveal he’s wearing a costume and he’s actually Merkel hiding in disguise in a twenty-one year old man’s body. 

Marco rolls his eyes. “Yes.”

“You, Marco Reus, are going to enter Big Brother? You?”

“Yes,” he repeats.

“And you’re doing it to prove that not everyone that participates in Big Brother is a…” Mats stops as he recalls Marco’s earlier words. “‘Money grubbing, fame starved, attention seeking asshole’?”

“Basically.” Marco shrugs. Mats still doesn’t look too convinced, so he adds, “Do you want me to tattoo it on your arm in big, bold letters to make it sink in? I’m really doing it, Mats.”

Mats pauses and looks away for a second to think. Long sentences are clearly harder for him to comprehend, and Marco can almost see his neurons banding together to figure this one out without anything breaking anything or causing much of a ruckus. Mats is, without a shadow of a doubt, the best kind of drunk.

“Don’t you mean on _your_ arm?”

“No,” Marco says, giving Mats a perfect, Colgate white smile.

“Okay,” is all the reply he gets before Mats lets his head rest on Marco’s shoulder and watches silently as Marco finishes the rest of the application process.

In a small, far off corner of his mind, Marco is aware that this is one of the worst ideas he’s ever had, and he’s had plenty of those.

Basically, he’s not what one would call Big Brother material. He’s an electronics engineering major about to start his masters degree in Berlin. He walks dogs as a part-time job and he’s right in the middle between extrovert and introvert, depending on the day. He’s only gotten into a fight once, when he was in the wrong place, a sleazy pub, at the wrong time, when a bar fight started and he got dragged in before he could escape. He avoids conflict by nature, finds people who pick fights for fun annoying and is a master of ignoring people he dislikes instead of starting shit. This has proven to be an excellent course of action time and time again since Marco tends to dislike a lot of people and their idiotic ways of thinking.

He knows that he’s going to regret this tomorrow morning, but here’s the thing: Marco prefers to avoid conflict, but that doesn’t mean he’s a coward. He’d told his friends that not everyone on Big Brother is an asshole, and if he gets the chance to prove it then he’ll do it by showing up and not being an asshole. It’s stupid, definitely, and a waste of time, but he’s going to do it, because he’s drunk and when he has a point to prove, he proves it.

He puts a picture of himself at the beach in his application, mentions something about loving to meet new people and wanting to show the world that not everyone in Big Brother sucks on why he wants to be in the show. For some unknown, unexplainable reason, he only puts ‘I love Mario Kart more than breathing, but less than chinese takeout’ on his description.

It’d made perfect sense in his head at the time.

He wakes up the next morning with a sleeping Mats on his bedroom floor, and a hangover that leaves his head swimming the moment he tries to sit up and has him eating a whole loaf of sliced bread in bed until two in the afternoon. He offers some to Mats, who eats in silence with him.

The memory of applying to Big Brother is so distant in Marco’s mind he thinks he made the whole thing up.

: :

Big Brother calls him in for an interview a week later. Marco is a little surprised with himself when he agrees to it, and he’s even more surprised when he agrees to be on the show.

Truth be told, he’s not so eager to prove his point now that he’s sober and had a chance to think about it, but apparently Big Brother pays its contestants just for participating, there’s a nice bonus the further you stay in the house and a break from university sounds like a nice change of plans.

His parents, his friends and pretty much everyone he tells about his plans think he’s gone mad, but Marco has long ago perfected the art of sarcastic replies coupled with a roll his eyes, which makes everyone drop the subject pretty quickly.

He’s participating to have a little bit of fun, not to become the next big reality TV star.

Honestly, what do they think is going to happen?

: :

Almost everyone has already arrived at the house when they allow Marco in.

He finds the waiting part stupid—he finds a lot of things about Big Brother stupid—and he knows he’s not going to last long with his attitude, but it’s not like he cares. He greets everyone with a smile and a, “Hi, I’m Marco Reus,” and tries not to feel bored by all the small talk.

The last person he greets is a guy about his age, maybe a bit younger. He’s shorter and has a wide, open smile and big puffy cheeks. He’s cute, Marco thinks, and he maybe stares at him for more than is socially acceptable. The guy doesn’t seem to mind.

“I’m Mario,” he says.

Marco shakes his hand and gives it a little squeeze before he drops it. “Marco.”

They stick close to one another that evening. Marco can’t speak for Mario, but he’ll admit he feels a little overwhelmed by how… cheery everyone else seems to be. He expected people to act up for the cameras, but he didn’t expect people smiling all the time as if they’ve won the lottery and throwing hugs around like they’re all buddies already.

Mario is the only one who looks weirded out as well—not scared, Marco adds to himself, as if Mats might be nearby ready to pick up one of his stray thoughts and make fun of him for it—so Marco doesn’t feel too bad monopolizing his attention throughout dinner.

“Favorite club?” Marco asks him.

“Dortmund all the way,” Mario replies, making Marco cheer and fist pump the air.

Across the table, one of the guys asks, “You’re a fan of losing then?” and Marco can’t tell if he’s joking or not, still too early to be able to read any of these people, so he flips him off with a smile and doesn’t say anything.

“We’re coming back,” Mario replies. He says it with a laugh, but his eyebrows are pinched together and his eyes dead serious. Marco squeezes his knee underneath the table. Of all the things to get into a fight for, football is in the top five, but only after at least three pints.

Mario smiles, a little embarrassed. “Yeah, you’re right,” he whispers to him, coughing afterwards to clear his voice before he asks, louder this time. “Favorite musician?”

“Justin Bieber,” Marco replies, looking as deadpan as humanly possible.

“Really?” Mario sits up straighter to stare at Marco with wide, disbelieving eyes.

“No.” Marco laughs, “but I do like him. I like pop music in general -- sue me. My favorite would probably be Fall Out Boy, though. You?”

“Kanye West.”

“You do look like a rap fan,” Marco says, earning him a sideways punch from Mario. The rest of the conversation flows easily between them, with other people joining in every so often. 

It’s the most comfortable Marco’s been since he decided to be on the show.

After dinner they all go to the living room, where he and Marco share a love seat while they’re forced to play a get to know each other game by the Big Brother voice, which, by the way, is really fucking creepy in person. Marco shares this with Mario, who laughs and says, “I know, I almost jumped out of my skin first time I heard it. I hope it doesn’t say anything while we sleep or I’m going to wet the bed.”

Marco throws his head back and pats Mario’s knee, finding the mental image of Mario waking up in the dead of night to the Big Brother voice talking to him more hilarious than it has any right to be.

“That would be hilarious.”

“That would be traumatic,” Mario says and Marco laughs again.

Somebody on the other side of the room coughs, dry and full of arrogance, bringing them back to the fact that they’re still playing the stupid get to know each other game and it’s their turn to answer another brilliant question about themselves.

“Sorry, what was it?” Marco asks.

“The question was ‘What made you fall in love with your last ex?’” the guy—what was his name? Heinrich? Herbert? Definitely something beginning with a H—asks.

Marco cringes. Not only is it a tacky question, it’s a trick as well. Despite realizing this, it still takes him a few seconds to figure out what to say.

He wasn’t really in love with his last ex. They dated for three months and broke up because they were both too busy with university and decided it was better to go their separate ways. It’s not the juiciest of answers, but it leaves him with a problem. Does he want to admit his last relationship was with a guy? Marco’s been out of the closet since he was fifteen and his mom caught him making out with their next door neighbor, but it’s one thing to be out to his friends and family, and another to be out on national television. He could always use a gender neutral pronoun, but that, in itself, is enough of an answer.

In the end, honesty wins the debate. He doesn’t know how long he’ll stay in this house, and he’d like to do it without lying through his teeth the whole time.

“He brought me coffee and takeout in the middle of the night while I was studying for my exams. I couldn’t not fall in love with that,” Marco grins, lazy and relaxed. He’s trying to sound as casual as possible, but his eyes are too sharp and his body posture tense, sending off a thousand warning signs for everyone to back off.

He knows it’s unlikely anyone is going to react, at least for now anyway. Marco has been forced to watch enough bad reality TV with his friends to know nobody likes the person who starts a fight on the very first day, but you never know when there’s a dumb homophobe ready to make their debut. 

He watches everyone carefully, but nobody looks bothered by his answer, with most laughing at his joke and moving on. Marco lets out a sigh in relief and turns his head to his side, about to say something else to Mario when he notices the stiff line of Mario’s spine and the way he’s grasping both his hands tightly in his lap.

Oh no. Come on, Marco thinks, not him. Out of everyone in the house, please don’t make the homophobe jackass the cute guy with a good sense of humor and excellent taste in football clubs. Marco doesn’t deserve this. He’s a good person. He even went to a Bayern Munich game last year for Thomas’ birthday and kept the complaining to a minimum.

The next question is for Mario and it’s in the same line as Marco’s. “Why did you breakup with your last ex?” guy whose name starts with a H asks.

Mario, if possible, stands even straighter. He looks at his hands while he wrings his fingers together over and over again. Marco catches him biting his lip and sends out one last prayer to the heavens asking _please, dear God, don’t make the nice, attractive guy a homophobe. I never ask for much, just give me this one little—_

“He moved away at the beginning of the summer. We tried to make the long-distance relationship thing work, but then he cheated on me so that,” he says with a bitter laugh, “was the end of that.”

Mario’s admission earns him more attention than Marco’s, but besides a, “You’re better off without him, _liebe_ ,” from Hannah, the thirty year old barista with an unironic Spice Girls t-shirt, nobody comments.

The round of questions continues, moving to the next person, and Mario falls back against the couch like a doll whose strings have been cut. He closes his eyes and exhales so loudly Marco can’t help himself. He reaches out and puts a hand on Mario’s shoulder, squeezing before he drops it. It’s a small gesture, just a little bit of reassurance from a friend, or the closest any of them have to a friend in the house yet, but Mario gets what it means. He smiles and whispers, “Thanks.”

Marco smiles back. “Don’t mention it.”

He doesn’t add how relieved he is that Mario isn’t a secret homophobe and that he thinks his ex-boyfriend sounds like a bag of dicks. Maybe later.

After the game is over, the Big Brother voice tells them their first challenge is tomorrow morning so they should all go to bed soon, which, again, fucking creepy.

The house, for all its grandeur and brilliant design, only has three bedrooms with no single beds.  

For the first time that day, Marco thinks about his home, where he has his own bed, just for him, and he thinks about his friends, who must be having a great laugh at his expense right now, and he thinks about Thomas, who has undoubtedly already created a fan club on Facebook where he can make fun of him. 

Marco closes his eyes and breathes. He can do this, he tells himself. He once shared a bed with Bastian, who talks in his sleep, and Lukas, who _kicks_ in his sleep. He can definitely do this.

Everyone else groups together, some seemingly unconsciously, others pulling whoever is their newest best friend with them. The large bed that can fit four people easily is picked by three girls and Marco stays far away from that bedroom. Too noisy.

He’s not sure how he and Mario end up together, if it’s other people finding somebody else to sleep with or if they search for each other without realizing it. He knows he doesn’t go after him, although he does think about it a couple of times. All he does is pick a fluffy bed with yellow covers near a corner, where it’s the farthest away from all the others, and leaves his bag on top to mark it while he goes to the bathroom. When he comes back a couple of minutes afterwards, Mario is there, putting on his pajamas near Marco’s chosen bed. 

“Hope you don’t mind if we share. It’s just that I don’t really know any of the other people well and...” Mario rambles off, shy and apologetic, a clean contrast to the laid-back air he had before.

Marco cuts him off with a wave of his hand.

“It’s fine, I’d rather share with you than with someone else,” he says, freezing on spot while he puts away his clothes when he realizes the connotation behind his words. 

Thankfully, Mario seems to get what he meant and saves Marco the trouble of looking like an idiot as he tried to explain himself. “Which side of the bed do you want?” he asks.

Marco picks the one closer to the wall and refuses to blush or look the slightest bit embarrassed by the whole exchange. He knows he’s given everyone back home watching plenty of material for jokes already. No need to add more wood to the fire.

He slips quietly underneath the covers, which are even more comfortable and warm than they looked. The back of his neck is prickling, the force of too many stares focused on it itching the skin there. Marco knows how it looks, the two gay—or bisexual in Mario’s case, he doesn’t know and he’s not assuming—guys getting close to each other on the first day. He knows that anything they say will be heard, that even the slightest whisper will be picked up, that the night vision cameras won’t leave them alone for a second.

None of this would matter if Marco didn’t really like Mario or if Mario was just a friend who happened to be into guys. Unfortunately, Marco is in touch with his feelings, and he knows Mario isn’t just that, or at least that he won’t be for long.

It’s funny how up until today, Marco’s never valued his privacy too much. It’s one of those things you don’t notice until it’s gone. He knew that he would start to notice it when he entered the house, but knowing and experiencing are two very different things. 

He notices it now.

Marco looks at Mario, whose eyes are slightly covered by his bangs and who’s lying just a few centimeters away, body radiating the heat of a furnace. Mario looks back with a shy smile playing on his lips. Marco finds that he doesn’t care about being watched so much after that.

: :

There’s nothing quite like hanging upside down from a chair above a pool full of green dye, with the fate of your life at stake—or the sake of your hair, which is practically the same thing—in the hands of your housemates to make you question your life choices.

Marco’s never been big on introspection, but it’s not as if he has anything else to do right now besides that and screaming, “Don’t do it, Mario! Think of the children!”

“What children?” Mario asks. He looks weird upside down, like his body is too thin for him.

“The ones we’re never going to have if you do this to me!” Marco shouts. He’s getting desperate, throwing out anything he can think of to stop his best friend from dumping him into the pool.

“Getting a little presumptuous, aren’t we?” Mario flashes him a cocky smirk before he throws the tennis ball he’s holding at the big, red circle next to Marco’s head and the chair holding Marco drops him.

Aw, fuck.

It takes Marco a couple of seconds to figure out which way is up before he drags himself out of the pool, with green dye now covering every inch of his body and clinging to his hair like it’s nobody’s business. He’s going to kill Mario, but not before he kills the show producers. Of course that means he has to get up from the ground at some point, but he’s not worrying about that part right now. Next to him, Mario’s team is celebrating their victory in today’s challenge. Marco refuses to look at them out of a now mostly gone sense of pride.

A couple of his teammates pat his sticky shoulder before they move inside and Marco waves them away. Of all the challenges he and Mario can be forced to play on opposite teams, why did it have to be the one involving green dye, and more importantly, why did it have to be the one where the winning team got a fancy five star meal for dinner and the losing one got hospital food.

“I’ll save you some of my dinner,” Mario says from somewhere above him. Marco can feel Mario’s fat toes poking his ribs. He thinks of rolling over and squishing them, but even he is not that cruel.

Well, not that cruel to Mario, anyway.

He is, however, cruel enough to say, “I don’t want your food, _traitor_.”

“Don’t be like that,” Mario says. Marco ignores Mario’s words, getting up from the ground and strutting inside the house with as much dignity as he can wearing nothing but his underwear and covered in green ink. “Marco! We were on different teams!”

“Save it! You missed out on your chance of having beautiful, blonde babies with me. It’s too late now,” he says dramatically, wiping away a couple of fake tears and heading towards the shower where the rest of his green teammates are.

“You’re a great actor,” Marina tells him while they’re showering side by side. 

Marco laughs while he scrubs every inch of hair in his scalp with too much force. He thinks about saying something funny back, but in the end stays silent.

He picks up his lovely, salt free, flavor free, happiness free food from the kitchen. He spares a small glance into the dining room where the winning team—and Mario, his brain adds, as if he didn’t know that already, helpful as always—are eating before he goes to his bedroom.

Marina and Heinrich eat with him and it’s nice. Comfortable. Marco is not as close to them as he is to Mario, but he likes them enough as friends.

You’d think it’d be easier to make friends with people when you’re all stuck together in a house for three months with no television, internet, means of writing and access to the outside world, but alas, you’d be mistaken. Oh, you get to know everyone well, that’s for sure. It’s been over a month and two weeks since they all entered the Big Brother house, and Marco has now reached a point where he could write everyone’s biographies if he wanted to, but maybe that’s the kicker. It’s too much information, too much contact, too much of everyone all the time.

The only person Marco has created a real friendship with is Mario, but with him it’s different. Mario isn’t everyone, he’s _Mario_.

Marina goes to bed after dinner and Heinrich goes to the living room to talk to Sophia. Marco waits on his bed, staring at the ceiling and counting the dots there.

He’s counted a hundred and eleven when Mario shows up and lies down on bed next to him.

Marco glances over to see if he’s carrying any food with him. He isn’t. His subsequent disappointment must show on his face because Mario laughs and says, “You’re such a child. First you tell me you don’t want anything, now you give me puppy eyes?”

“I didn’t think you’d actually believe me,” Marco says. Well, whines, really.

Mario laughs again. He does some kind of magic trick and pulls out a slice of cake from his sleeve. Marco eyes it doubtfully for a second before he plucks it from Mario’s hand and eats it. You don’t say ‘no’ to cake, even when its place of storage is a little more than questionable.

“Does that mean I can have your blonde children now?” 

“I’ll think about it,” Marco replies while he licks his fingers clean.

After he’s done with giving Big Brother its R rating a reason to exist, Marco stares at Mario, who stares back in silence. There are a thousand things they want to say to each other balanced on the tip of their tongues, ready to propel out at the slightest opportunity. Marco bites down on his bottom lip. 

He wants to say, _I’m tired of them pitting us against each other to create drama_.

He wants to shout, _I’m tired of all these stupid rules on what we can and can’t talk about_.

He also wants to whisper, _I’m tired of not being able to talk about our relationship_ , because at this point everyone knows that there is something going on between him and Mario. Except for the part where there isn’t, because they’re always on camera and anything they say or do will be picked apart and scrutinized by all the gossip magazines the next day. 

They haven’t even spoken about _that_ out loud, the show doesn’t want them too, but they don’t need to. Marco is usually not confident enough in his relationships to assume things for the other person, but with Mario it’s different. They get each other. They clicked, right from the very first day, and so he knows Mario doesn’t want the world to see them either. 

It’s not that they’re ashamed, it’s just that they both want to keep this theirs and theirs alone.

Marco would even say, _I’m tired of not being able to kiss you_ , if he could do it without worrying about all the consequences.

Instead he says, “Karissa keeps giving me really shifty looks when you’re not looking. I don’t know if it’s because she’s jealous or if she just hates me.”

Mario gets a thoughtful look on his face before he wrinkles his nose. “That means the other day, when she said I had a really nice smile, she was hitting on me, wasn’t she?”

Marco isn’t able to stop the burst of laughter that slips past his lips. “She was definitely hitting on you. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I thought I was just imagining it,” Mario admits. He rubs a hand over his face and turns over, hiding his face in the pillows.

Marco stares at him, a small smile on his face. He reaches out and touches the few wisps hair on the back of Mario’s neck. “Would you be interested?” he asks, quietly, his curiosity getting the best of him.

He’d never found out if Mario was gay or bisexual.

“In her? No. I’m attracted to both guys and girls. There’s just never been a difference to me, you know? They’re all people and that’s what I see. But when it comes to actually liking someone, it’s different. I need to be really good friends with someone first before I start thinking about taking things further.”

Mario turns his head to looks Marco in the eye. Marco’s hand stays on the back of Mario’s neck. Neither of them moves it.

“Am I a really good friend?” Marco asks, so quietly even their personal microphones will have trouble picking it up.

Mario smiles at him and it’s a beautiful, relaxed smile; a little shy, but somehow just right. “Yeah.”

: :

Two months and fifteen days into the competition, Big Brother—Marco hates that he thinks of the voice as a real entity now—throws in a curve ball.

Two people, not just one, will be eliminated next Sunday.

Marco didn’t care much for the show at first, but it’s started to grown on him, hard not to after all the stupid shit he’s done to survive elimination each week. He also thinks he’s come way too far to go home now, two weeks before before the show ends. Everyone else seems to think the same, which is probably the reaction the show producers are looking for in the first place.

Marco has a bad feeling about the whole thing.

“You’re making a storm in a teacup,” Mario tells him at night. They’re lying in bed, naked save for their boxer shorts and glued to each other from head to toe. Neither of them cares that the cameras are recording everything they say and do, a feeling shared around the house. 

It’s hard to care about their appearances and what the outside world might think of them when mundane things like gossip magazines are a blissfully distant thought.

“But what if they send one of us home and leave the other just to mess with us?” he asks.

“Then we’ll pull a Hunger Games on their asses and refuse to go without the other.”

Marco laughs, rolling away to hide his face in his hands. “Oh my god, I can’t believe you just compared the Hunger Games to the Big Brother television show,” he says, not caring that he’s been told not to speak like this.

“Well, they’re pretty similar if you think about it…” Mario says. He doesn’t care either; it’s hard to do so when it’s just them, lying in the dark, not truly away from everything and everyone, but close enough. “What do you think is going to happen if we get kicked out? Both of us at the same time?” 

“Then—” Marco hesitates. He’s not sure how far his bout of courage will go. He doesn’t want to insult the show, because doing so is the same as insulting the people who watch it and he doesn’t want to get mauled to death when he gets out of here. At the same time, however, he can’t deny that he’d give an arm and a leg to get the fuck out with Mario. “That wouldn’t be terrible,” is what he settles for in the end.

Mario smiles and shakes his head, rolling away so that he’s lying on his back as well. “It’d be very Hunger Games. Very brave.”

“How would the public voting us out be very brave?” Marco asks with a laugh, earning himself a playful shove.

“Because we’d have to face elimination and death together. We’d hold hands. You’d cry and I’d comfort you. It would be inspiringly beautiful.”

Marco laughs and shakes his head. Two weeks. Two weeks and they’re both out of there together.

: :

Double elimination sees Sophia and Mario out. According to the show’s host, who is constantly leering at Marco and Mario and asking probing questions that make Marco grind his teeth and Mario cringe, their fans got tired of waiting for them to ‘kiss and get it on’—as if they’d ever do that on television, for cock’s sake—and this was their ‘punishment’.

Marco thinks he grinds his teeth so much that night that he’s going to need medical treatment when he gets out. He translates the little speech into real life language and figures the show producers believe they’ll earn more viewers if they show him moping and sulking around the house. 

If Marco thought Big Brother was a complete sham before, he thinks it’s absolute shit now.

“You’ve got to win this for me now, alright?” Mario whispers in his ear before he leaves. They’re lingering by the door. Sophia has already left and the three other remaining house mates have gone back inside.

“Don’t worry, I’ll avenge your death,” Marco says. He means for it to come out as a joke, but he sounds too serious, like he really means it.

It’s the damn show, he thinks, it makes everything seem too dramatic and important and over the top and here he is, feeding the shark right in its mouth.

He backs away from Mario. He’s not going to kiss him, not like this. Their first kiss will be theirs and theirs alone. He doesn’t worry about what Mario might think because he knows Mario understands. He always does.

“When you win we should go on vacation. Visit Ibiza.”

“I always knew you just wanted me for my money, Götze.”

Mario laughs and looks him in the eye. He looks like he wants to say something else, but the words get stuck in his mouth. “I’ll see you in two weeks,” he says in the end.

Marco nods. “Two weeks.”


	2. Chapter 2

Marco wakes up to the sound of pots and pans being tossed around carelessly in the kitchen. He turns to his side, about to push Mario off the bed and tell him to go find out what’s happening and freezing when he realizes Mario isn’t there anymore.

It takes a long minute for the thought to fully hit him. He blames it on him still being half-sleep and gets out of bed. No point in trying to sleep with a hurricane in the house.

“What’s happening?” he asks as he steps inside the kitchen. Marina is standing next to the fridge with her arms crossed and her lips pursed in a small frown. Karissa and Toni are by the stove making all the noise and throwing the kitchen upside down.

“We’re making spaghetti bolognese,” Karissa says without so much as a glance in his direction him.

Marco looks up at the clock on the mantelpiece. “At seven in the morning?”

“Yes,” Toni says, turning around to glare at him, “do you have a problem with that?”

He sees Marina shaking her head at him from the corner of his eye, recognizes a messy fight that he can’t win from the fire in Toni’s eyes, says, “No,” and turns around without another word.

Marina follows him out and together they huddle in her bed, heads almost hidden by the light blue covers. He doesn’t worry about how they might look. The beds are the most comfortable place to sit in the whole house, always warm and soft, and everyone knows that.

“I forgot about how insufferable they both are. With Mario here it was so much easier to ignore them.” Marco waves one of his hand in the air, stupidly hoping it will illustrate his point better than his words.

“Now you know how the rest of us feel having to deal with them,” Marina says without judgement.

Marco laughs and hopes that if he makes it through this week’s elimination into the final, then so does she, or he’s completely screwed.

He hadn’t liked Karissa right from the start. She’s one of those people who seem to create drama by just breathing, which automatically puts her in Marco’s shit list. Toni he’d mostly avoided during the whole competition. He’s too loud, has a tendency to stare at people for minutes on end in silence and complains about every little thing.

Marco groans and rubs his eyes. Why did he sign up for this again? He remembers it made so much sense that night with Mats, but now it looks ridiculous. Who cares if everyone on Big Brother is an asshole? Marco certainly felt like being one right now, had half a mind to go into the kitchen and dump Karissa’s and Toni’s noodles on their heads if it meant getting some peace and quiet.

“Don’t do it,” Marina says, as if reading his mind. “There’s no point in starting a fight now and getting yourself kicked out when we’re almost at the end. Just think about the money, and being able to quit your job for at least a year if you win.”

She grins at him and Marco grins back. He doesn’t mention that he’s going to use the money to buy some well-deserved vacation time if he wins. It’s silly, considering everyone who watches the show already knows that and more about him and Mario, but he likes to think it’s still theirs. That anything they said in a whisper to each other can be kept a secret if they don’t bring it up again.

“You’re right,” he agrees. Her smile gets bigger as if to say _of course I am_. His own smile widens in return. “Come on, let’s see if we can steal some of their food.”

Her frown from earlier makes a comeback, making Marco laugh. “What? You don’t like noodles for breakfast? What a weirdo.”

She aims a punch at him, but he ducks before her fist connects with his skull. He’s still laughing by the time he enters the kitchen and Karissa glares at him. Marco’s good mood doesn’t last for long after that.

The rest of the week seems to go by the same way. He and Marina try to avoid Karissa and Toni, but the other pair seem to be determined to be as annoying as humanly possible, including but not limited to karaoke at three a.m. while Marco and Marina are trying to sleep, dumping Marco’s bed in the pool as a ‘prank’ and ‘accidentally’ hitting Marina during one of the challenges hard enough that she has to get medical attention.

No matter how hard he tries to keep it intact, Marco’s resolve not to be an asshole begins to crack. _He_ begins to crack.

He misses Mario the same way he’d miss a limb, keeps thinking of things he wants to say to him or do with him and freezing every time he realizes he can no longer do either. He’s lonely and frustrated and trying not to show it because he can’t even do that, knows it’s what people want and expect from him, which is why he has to do the exact opposite.

It’s exhausting, is what it is. Marco often thinks about punching Toni. Not too hard, of course, just hard enough to make him shut him up for a while and get himself kicked out. 

But then he thinks about using the prize money if he wins to visit Ibiza with Mario, and how nice it’d be to get away from everyone and everything.

He thinks about his family. How his mom would be disappointed in him. How his dad would give him a long rant on why it’s important to always keep your composure, how he wasn’t raised to go around throwing punches instead of words.

He thinks about Mats, who would shake his head at him and give him a ‘that was kind of dumb’ smile; and Thomas, who’d say he was proud of Marco, which in itself is a bad thing because you always do the opposite of what Thomas says, not the other way around.

He thinks about the promise he made, how he said he wouldn’t act like an asshole, how punching someone definitely makes him an asshole.

And finally, he thinks about Mario, who he desperately wants to see again, and who wouldn’t judge him for wanting to leave, but wouldn’t be happy either. Marco can’t punch anyone if it’d make Mario unhappy. He’s that far down the line already.

The last elimination before the final sees Karissa out. Marco puts on his best fake smile as he says goodbye to her and cringes when the hug she gives him is too tight to be friendly. He goes to bed early, unsure on whether or not he’s happy to make it to the end.

There are no challenges left for them to do. The show producers want them to speak instead; speak about their feelings, their thoughts, their wishes. They’re meant to create a deeper bond with the audience and it’s bullshit, it’s all so bullshit Marco can’t stand it. He can’t stand how everything is so artificial and he hates the situation he put himself in, hates himself because he has no one else to blame. He’s testy and grumpy all the time. Not even Marina has the patience to put up with him, not that he blames her.

“I’m sorry,” he tells her halfway through the week when he realizes he’s only making everything worse by acting like a bag of dicks. They’re in Marco’s bedroom while Toni swims in the pool.

“It’s alright. I get it. You miss him,” she says, making Marco frown.

“It’s not that. I mean, it’s not _only_ that. It’s just—“ he thrusts his hands in the air and waves them helplessly, because he can’t say it, not even now, risks getting sued off his ass for talking shit about the show. “I wanna go home,” he says, voice barely above a whisper.

He sounds like a petulant child, which, in a way, is exactly what he is. Marina looks away to the other side of the room. Marco feels terrible about what a shitty friend he’s been and how he hasn’t bothered to think about anyone but himself all week.

“What about you? Anxious to get home?” he asks. He can’t remember if Marina ever mentioned having a boyfriend waiting for her, but he knows she’s close to her family.

“Of course. I miss my family, and my dog. Also having an internet connection.”

“Wow, can’t even go a couple of days without porn, and they say guys are the perverts.”

Marina laughs, looking scandalized. Marco grins like the cat who ate the canary.

It’s easier after that to relax and talk about how he misses his mom’s cooking and how he hopes everything will go back to normal when they leave.

“You don’t want to be famous?” Toni asks him the following day after lunch. He sounds genuinely curious.

Marco shakes his head. “Nah, that was never the goal.”

“So what? When you leave you’re just gonna go back to university and pretend this whole thing never happened?”

“I didn’t say things didn’t change,” Marco corrects, “just that I don’t want to be famous.”

Toni shakes his head at him. He doesn’t get it, but Marco doesn’t blame him. He realizes he’s in the minority here as someone who joined Big Brother to have some fun and prove a stupid point. Even Mario joined the show for the money and ‘five minutes of fame that I can always say I had and act like they’re worth something’.

Marco shrugs and offers to make dinner for the three of them. If there’s anything he’s learned the past three months, it’s that food is a great peace offering.

By the time Sunday rolls around, they’re all testy and on edge. Even Marco, who up until now hadn’t cared about winning or losing, simply wanted to leave and have nothing to do with the show ever again, is nervous.

He could buy a house if he won. Take a break from university and move anywhere he wanted to. Maybe even get Mario to move in with him.

He pulls at his bow tie and runs a hand through his hair even though that means he’ll have to fix it again. The fact that they’ve all dressed up to the nines tonight isn’t helping anyone breathe any better, but Marco guesses they aren’t meant to do that anyway.

Around nine o’clock somebody comes get them and leads them outside for the first time in three months, towards the main room where the show’s host and all their families, friends and ex-housemates are waiting for them. Marco tries not to look at them, figures it will be easier to act like they’re not there until he can interact with them with the cameras off. However, it’s impossible not to notice the giant sign Jerome and Thomas are holding with ‘MARCO HAVE OUR CHILDREN’ written in pink glitter.

It’s also impossible not to notice Mario sitting next to them with a huge smile on his face. Damn, he looks good, Marco thinks, biting his lip. Mario is dressed up in a navy blue blazer, his hair swept so neatly to the side to the side that Marco wants to go up to him right then and there and mess it up. He also wants to hug him and kiss him and do endless more things to him. 

Instead he smiles back and immediately regrets it when Michael, the show’s host, notices him doing so.

“Marco, you must be very happy to leave to the house,” he says more than asks. His smile is too wide, too pearly white. Marco grinds his teeth. The next two hours are going to be a blast, he can already tell.

“We all are,” Marco’s reply is diplomatic, but Michael refuses to give him the smooth out.

“Yes, but nobody else has someone from the house waiting for them,” Michael winks at Marco as if they’re two pals sharing a joke. Marco has to fight back the urge to sneer.

“We all made friends here we’d like to see again.”

Michael frowns at him and Marco smiles. He’s not going to play this game, even if it costs him his win. He’s not going to give this to anyone.

Michael turns his attention to Toni and they spend the next hour talking to their families and friends, asking pointless questions nobody cares about. Marco enjoys it despite himself. Regardless of how he feels about Big Brother, it’s still great to see everyone again and have a little chat. It’s distracting and keeps time flowing. He laughs his ass off when he sees his prediction about Thomas making him a fan club was right, although he sobers up when he hears he has over one hundred thousand fans.

He wonders how his life is going to be like for the next couple of months and once again wishes he could turn to Mario and ask him about it. The thought is harder to deal with this time than it ever was before, as he could set it in motion now if he truly wanted to. Mario is right there, sitting only a couple of meters away.

Marco’s leg starts twitching up and down. It can’t be long before they announce the winner and they get to leave.

As if sensing his thoughts, Michael turns his attention back to Marco again, only this time he’s also looking at Mario. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

“So, Mario,” he says with a wide smile. Marco wonders if it’s too late to punch his way out. “You must have missed Marco a lot.”

“Of course,” Marco shrugs and a smile like it’s obvious. Marco smiles at his reaction on instinct. 

“Do you have any plans for when you two leave? Maybe something arranged for tonight?” Michael asks, leaning forward in his seat.

Marco watches Mario physically pull back. His smile shifts minutely, his face closes off. Marco’s urge to punch Michael returns with a vengeance, but he holds himself back. Now is really, really not the time. He doesn’t think Mario would appreciate it, anyway.

After a couple of seconds, Mario shrugs. He looks Michael in the eye as he does so, which prompts Michael to ask, “What? That’s it? You’re not going to tell us anything.”

Mario shrugs again, this time with a smirk on his face. Marco laughs, couldn’t help it even if he tried. Michael turns around to glare at him before he forces a fake smile out. Any other day and Marco would worry about pissing off the show makers like this, but he right now he’s too tired, too anxious to leave, already done with this whole ordeal.

Michael moves his attention to someone else and then it’s time. 

It’s hard for Marco to explain what happened in the next couple of minutes. Everything seems to happen in fragments. Time stutters and freezes before it punches its way forward.

The whole time Marco feels as if he’s watching the names be called and the people move from outside his body. The heartbeat in his chest echoes against his ears, his limbs become too heavy for him to move. He hears their names being called in order, from third to first place, but it takes him ages to connect the dots. 

It’s only when the music starts playing and Marina is pulling him into a claustrophobic hug that the words finally reach his brain.

_“Congratulations, Marina. You’re the winner of Big Brother’s fifth season!”_

Marina had won, and Marco got second place.

The words sting for a second. He’ll admit that after everything he went through, all the dumb shit the show producers made him do to make him more likable to the audiences, he thought he had have a real shot at winning. But then he looks at Marina, who told him once she’d use the money to pay her parents’ mortgage and travel the world, who looks radiant, who was without a doubt the kindest person in the whole house, and he realizes this, too, is alright.

Somebody else pulls him into a hug and it takes Marco a few seconds to recognize the soft lines of the body glued to his.

“I’m sorry,” Mario tells him. He does sounds like he’s genuinely sorry, but he’s also smiling a lot, so he can’t be feeling that terrible.

Around them everyone is celebrating Marina’s victory. There’s so much confetti floating in the air that their friends and families have been reduced to nothing but bright shadows. Marco smiles back.

“The prize for second place is still enough to pay for a vacation in Ibiza,” Marco replies.

Mario’s smile widens. He squeezes one of Marco’s hands and pulls Marco’s head down with his other hand. “I know where the nearest exit is,” he whispers and it’s ridiculous that of everything that’s happened so far in the night, hearing Mario say those harmless words is the best thing to happen yet.

Marco nods, repeatedly, a little too dumbfounded to find words. Mario laughs and pulls at his hand and then they’re leaving, slipping past everyone and ducking beneath people’s arms without a word until they reach the sacred exit. They break into a dead sprint there, giggling like mad teenagers and completely ignoring anyone who tries to stop them.

They drop their microphones in front of the door to the parking lot and Marco can’t think, can’t worry about the consequences of leaving like this, can’t do anything but follow Mario and laugh and think,  _finally_.

Mario’s car is a small red Toyota and neither of them spares it more than a glance before they climb inside. Afterwards, Marco takes a minute to just sit and try to get his breathing back in control. He feels his ribcage expand and pull at his lungs, notices the way his skin is now covered in thin layer of sweat and how his hair is flopped on his forehead. He feels as if he’s run a marathon.

When he turns around on his seat to look at Mario, he sees Mario look back with the same kind of breathtaking wonder in his eyes.

“It’s over,” Marco says.

“I know.”

“It’s— I mean— we—“ Marco rubs a hand over his face and then looks back at Mario, who is staring at him with the dorkiest smile on his face, as if Marco is the world’s eight wonder. “Shit.”

And then Marco does the only appropriate thing he can do and lunges at Mario.

The kiss is not so much a kiss as it is an attempt to get as close as possible to one another. Marco licks his own lips in the fraction of a second they’re apart, an old nervous twitch, and Mario takes the opportunity to push his mouth open and suck on Marco’s tongue.

The breathy moan that slips past Marco’s lips is unavoidable, just like it's unavoidable for him not to grasp the back of Mario’s neck and mark the tan skin there with his fingernails while he tries to pull Mario to his lap. He hears Mario gasp against his mouth, and even though it’s such a small, innocuous sound it still sends shivers down Marco’s whole body and has him kissing Mario like a starved man because this is theirs, entirely theirs, that noise was just for him and they can have all of this.

“Three months I’ve been wanting to kiss you. Three fucking months,” Marco says, even to his voice sounds reverent and dreamlike. He kisses the corner of Mario’s mouth, the line of his jaw and the skin beneath his ear. He feels Mario’s pulse with his tongue before he bites the skin there, can’t resist leaving a mark just because he can.

“Not that I have any complaints right now, but—“ Mario tries to say before his voice breaks into a moan when Marco pinches one of his nipples and oh, _oh_ , Marco did not know that. “I have a room. A hotel room.”

Marco pulls back to look him in the eye, wonders if the dazed look on Mario’s face and his blown pupils are replicated on his own face. “Okay. Okay, yes, let’s do that,” Marco says, more to himself than anything else.

Mario nods and goes back to his seat, but not before pulling Marco in for another heated kiss. 

This was going to be a long car ride.

“Please tell me the hotel is less than ten minutes from here.”

“Better. It’s five,” Mario says and Marco gets the urge to pull him off his seat and kiss him all over again. Since Mario is driving and it wouldn’t do them any good to get into a car accident, Marco settles for putting a possessive hand on Mario’s thigh.

He’s going to leave it at that, has no intention of taking things further, but then Mario says, “ _Marco_ ,” in warning even though he makes no effort to actually move Marco’s hand, and all Marco sees is a challenge he can’t refuse.

He watches the way Mario’s eyes never leave the road, the way his knuckles turn white around the steering wheel as Marco’s hand goes higher and higher. He watches and feels a lazy sense of accomplishment at the thought that he’s the one making Mario react like this. He puts his hand over Mario’s crotch, the lightest amount of pressure, and watches Mario let out a shaky exhale.

This time, when Mario says his name again, it’s closer to a request than it is to a warning, and Marco sure as hell isn’t saying no.

“If you crash this car with us in it, I’ll never let you forget it,” Marco says as he pulls down Mario’s zipper.

“Then don’t give me a handjob while I’m driving. _Fuck_ ,“ Mario groans as Marco gets a hand around his dick, “we’re like, two minutes away.”

“I’m not giving you a handjob,” Marco says with a grin that feels too smug, even for him, and then lowers his head so that he can fit Mario’s dick in his mouth.

“Oh, God,” Mario says as Marco takes him to the root in one slow, tortuous movement, “you don’t have a gag reflex. I did not know that.”

Marco hums around his dick, hoping he can convey ‘it never came up in conversation’ through the hollowing of his cheeks and the hand he’s using to touch Mario’s balls.

It’s not the best blowjob he’s ever given, he’ll admit. For one, the angle isn’t working in his favour and he has to hold himself up higher than he’d like to avoid the gear stick. For two, despite how enjoyable it is to hear Mario thump his head against the seat and not hold back on the noise, Marco would really prefer if they didn’t end in a car accident. Nevertheless, the fact that Big Brother ended less than one hour ago and he’s already giving the guy he’s been pining over for three months roadhead is enough to put this blowjob in Marco’s top five.

When Mario abruptly pulls the car over and puts both of his hands on Marco’s head, running his fingernails down Marco’s scalp and moaning even louder than before, Marco becomes pretty sure Mario is on the same boat as him.

Marco decides to slow things down then, since there's no longer the danger of imminent death looming above them. He takes his time swirling his tongue around the head of Mario's dick and licking down his shaft, changes rhythms without warning and stops every few seconds to just look at Mario, with his flushed cheeks and red-bitten lips.

“Marco, I’m going to come, I’m—“ Mario tries to pull him off, but Marco bats at his hands and stays right where he is. He wants this. He wants to feel the underside of Mario’s cock rub against his tongue and he wants to see Mario come for the first time with his dick in Mario’s mouth. He wants everything he can have, anything that’s his for taking.

After Mario comes and they've both slump against their seats, Marco wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and Mario pulls him in for a kiss that is cut short by Mario's laughter, “The hotel is right down that street,” he points to a street that’s only two meters away from then to their right.

Marco shrugs. “I’m sure we’ll find other things to do there.”

Mario laughs at his corny line, which Marco knew he would, and laces their fingers together over the gear stick, which Marco didn’t expect. The rest of the one minute drive is spent in silence, and Marco waits by the elevators while Marco gets their key from the front desk. He thinks he sees one or two people look at him for longer than normal, but another part of him tells him he’s overreacting. He was a Big Brother contestant, not a movie star.

Still, when Mario reaches him, Marco asks, “Are we famous now?”

Mario doesn’t look surprised by the question, but he still stares at Marco for longer than he needs to before looking away and punching the button for the elevator in silence. He chews on his bottom lip while he thinks and the image makes Marco want to kiss him, so he does. He wonders when simply kissing Mario will stop being a novelty, and hopes it won’t for a long time.

“Kind of? Like, we’re not A-list celebrity status, and I’m pretty sure in six months everyone will have forgotten us, but for now we’re pretty known, yeah,” Mario says after they stop kissing.

“Are you—“ Marco begins, only to stop when he realizes he’s not sure what he wants to ask. _Are you okay with this? Is this good or bad? Does it feel like we’re still in the show?_ “Happy?”

Mario nods. “It’s tiring, but it’s also good. I’ve gotten loads of emails from people telling me how great it is to see a bisexual man on television. Also lots of emails about you, and helpful advice on how to deal with us being apart these past two weeks,” Mario laughs and shakes his head. “Not everything is good, obviously. The paparazzi are really annoying and the show isn’t going to let us go as easily as we’d like, but for the most part it’s good.”

“Worth the five minutes of fame?” Marco asks, jokingly.

“Definitely. I’m ready to go back to uni and everything, though. Enjoy the leftover seconds of fame from far away.”

“But first Ibiza.”

Mario smiles and pulls him in for a kiss. “But first Ibiza,” he agrees.

The elevator stops on their floor with a quiet ‘ _swush_ ' noise and Marco wraps his fingers around Mario’s hand and tugs him out even though he has no idea where exactly they’re headed. Mario notices this, just like he seems to notice everything else Marco doesn’t say, and laughs while he pulls Marco to the left.

“You know, we’re going to receive hell from everyone tomorrow for disappearing like we did, so we should really put to good use the time we have now,” Mario whispers against his ear once the door to their hotel room is closed.

“And I thought my line was corny!” Marco laughs, catching Mario’s fist in his hand before it manages to connect with his shoulder. “Come on, don’t worry. We have all the time in the world now.”

Mario looks at him in the eye and nods, slow and quiet. They’ve used up all their frantic energy, desperate kisses and hysterical bouts of laughter already, and now there doesn’t seem to be nothing else but them, easy and comfortable, left. 

Marco lets out a sigh of relief. He hadn’t worried about him and Marco fitting after Big Brother because he knew he had nothing to worry about. Still, it’s nice to see that this, too, works, just like everything else about them seems to.


End file.
